This blog provides a visual-verbal snapshot of Maori culture and contemporary Maori lifestyles in modern New Zealand. It presents my own experiences and observations of Maori culture and is not intended in anyway to be the definitive view on all things Maori, but rather an introduction for those who want to know more about Maori culture and its place in everyday bicultural New Zealand.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Te Puka - The Anchor Stone

Lee Bay, Stewart Island. Feb 2009. Ajr

When I was on Stewart Island (Rakiura) recently, I drove around to pretty deserted Lee Bay to photograph the giant chain that meanders out of the bush, across the walking track and ‘under the sand.’ Beside it sits Te Puka – the anchor stone which states: “Maori creation stories tell how Maui, a legendary Polynesian voyager, pulled up from the sea floor the anchor stone Te Puka a Maui (Stewart Island/Rakiura) to act as the anchor for the great ancestral canoe Te Waka o Aoraki (South Island of New Zealand). The stylised anchor chain is secured firmly on land by a shackle but disappears beneath Foveaux Strait/Te Ara a Kewa, to remind us of the spiritual and physical connections between Stewart Island/Rakiura and Bluff/Motu Pohue, the traditional taurapa or stern post of Te Waka o Aoraki. The chain links also symbolise a history of inter-relationships that have given the peoples of Stewart Island/Rakiura a strong sense of heritage and identity.” On my way back across Foveaux Strait to the mainland, I caught a second snap of the chain - white at Landsend, on the southern tip of the South Island.

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About Me

NZ-born freelance Journalist, Photographer, Travel Guide Writer, Fiction Writer,Traveller, Observer. Journalist.
Author of 7 editions of Frommer's New Zealand & 1st Ed of Frommer's NZ Day by Day, J.Wiley & Sons, New York 1999-2012).Author of Architects at Home, (1995);Private Views,(1996);Fine Cheese,(1996).
Short stories published in Another 100 NZ Short Short Stories(1998);The Third Century(1999);One Hundred New Zealand Short Short Stories 4(2000) Tandem Press, NZ.
Included in Dream Vacations -Frommers Travel Experts Choose Their Favourite Places on Earth(2007,Wiley, NYC).
Prior to returning to fulltime journalism in 1988, I worked as a fulltime exhibiting artist.
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